20.10

Cider-with-Rosie-Chocolate-Halloween-apples

I love a toffee apple, I do. My first memory of eating one was when I was around 5 or 6, at a Bonfire Night firework party hosted by my infant school. My Mum, Grandma and I had gone along for the evening, and they treated me to a toffee apple (which was exciting for 5 or 6 year old me! All that sugar! Yes! I win!), but the toffee was so thick and hard that I couldn’t even crack through it. If I remember correctly, the fireworks began shortly after that, I burst into tears (wasn’t fond of the loud noises, you see) and the whole night fizzled out like a soggy Catherine Wheel. Not the best.

But! These days, even though having grown up teeth makes eating toffee apples totally manageable,  I’m more fond of chocolate-covered varieties. They’re the easiest thing in the world to put together, look far more impressive than their caramelly cousins (in my humble opinion, at least), and would make a beautiful centrepiece for a Halloween party table. Or at least, the kind of Halloween party I imagine fabulous Americans host around this time of year. I’ve never met anyone who’s had a Halloween party here in the UK that wasn’t just all about cat ears on headbands, Pringles, and beer. But anyway! Make these for your imaginary extravagant Halloween party, make them for friends and family as fun gifts, or else just make them for yourself and eat three in one day!

Chocolate-covered-apple-recipe Halloween-chocolate-covered-apples White-dark-and-milk-chocolate-apples

Now, let me give you three guesses for the ingredients?

It’s a long list-
1. Apples.
2. Lobsters. Not really, the second ingredient is chocolate, of course. To coat six apples with chocolate, I used 2x100g bars of good quality dark (Lindt’s dark chocolate with sea salt is my favourite of all favourites!), 1x100g bar white chocolate, and 1x120g bar milk chocolate.

To make ::
- Take a few of your favourite apples (I used lovely crisp Braeburns), and use a thin, sharp metal skewer to poke a hold into the top of the apple (just next to the stalk) down to about halfway through. Then push a square-edged wooden skewer into the hole you’ve just made, being careful not to push it too far down into the apple.

- Melt each of your different types of chocolate in a bain marie (a bowl set over a pan of simmering water), taking care that the bottom of each bowl doesn’t touch the water. Carefully coat each apple in melted chocolate, making sure that the excess chocolate drains off. If it’s too thick, it doesn’t set nearly so nicely!

- If you want to dip the apples in extras (think cacao nibs, chopped nuts, coconut flakes, sprinkles) wait until the chocolate has almost set and is just tacky before doing any dippin’! I learnt the hard way that if you try and do sprinkles + a fresh coating of melted chocolate + apples, you and your kitchen will wind up in a whole heap of mess ;)

- To decorate with little ribbons of melted chocolate, cut a circle of parchment paper, then fold it in half once to make a half circle, and then twice more to form a small triangle. Fill up the little pouch with melted chocolate, fold over the top, then trim the tiniest snip of paper off the end of the paper pouch to form a piping bag. Draw a few lines of chocolate onto a board to test the flow of chocolate, then just go crazy! Layering up thin ribbons of different coloured chocolate created my favourite effect.

N.B ::
Good quality chocolate melts better than cheaper bars. I tried coating an apple with melted Galaxy chocolate, and it wound up thick, lumpy, and dull-looking. The Lindt bars I used set with a far more beautiful and smooth finish.

Ways-to-decorate-chocolate-covered-applesGourmet-candied-apples!Halloween-chocolate-toffee-apples

p.s. Don’t forget to tag me in any photos and use the hashtag #ciderwithrosiecooks on twitter/Instagram/Facebook (can you tag on Fbook? I don’t know) if you have a go at making them yourself! :)

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Posted in AUTUMN, CHOCOLATE., FROM MY HOME TO YOURS, HALLOWEEN, RECIPE, SWEET

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17.10

Country-pub-tartan-armchair

Apparently, this week’s been a week of numbers. We’ve done three ways with porridge, five ways to keep positive in winter, and now ten things that’ve made me happy! What can I say- got to keep those GCSE Maths skills sharp somehow, right? ;) This week’s been so very on point, it’s kind of obnoxious. Beautiful things have been purchased. Organisation has happened. To-do lists have become to-done lists. Workouts have been completed. I’ve even had a flu jab! And didn’t faint! This is an achievement in itself. I hope your week’s been good, too? This weekend we’re off to Wisley for their Autumn/harvest/apple festival (I can’t remember exactly what it is, but there’ll be food, so we’re going) and also doing a little life laundry and, hold the phone, wedding planning! We kind of maybe got a bit bored of wedding planning so took a major hiatus, and now need to get back in the game and find ourselves a good band for the reception! Now, here’s what else has made this week a lovely one!

1. Treating myself to a beautiful new suitcase! I’ll be honest with you, having my own set of lovely luggage kind of makes me feel more of a grown up than having my own house/dog/car/a husband-to-be does! ;)

2. Wednesday’s dinner of Swedish meatballs and homemade chips. Dunking chips in the sauce is what it’s all about. (Recipe here!)

3. New jeans! Thank you GAP for always making your jeans so comfy. They fit like a freaking glove.

4. Hozier’s album. If you’ve not yet listened to it, make it no.1 priority for the weekend! It’s a beauty, I tell you!

5. Autumn sunshine! I’ve been glad of a break from the rain, to be honest.

6. The sweet dog who gets each and every toy out of his toy box in turn during the late afternoons, and pops them on the sofa next to me one by one in an attempt to get me to ditch my laptop and play with him instead. It works like a charm, as you can imagine ;)

7. The anticipation of tonight being pizza night. Oh boy. I’m ready for it.

8. Reading Gone Girl! It’s good, huh?

9. The darling fiancé who took time out of his working day to run into town and pick up a dress I had on order, and couldn’t get hold of anywhere else. And then didn’t tut even once when I decided I didn’t like it when I tried it on at home. He’s the best :)

10. Watching the sun rise in the mornings, whilst eating breakfast.

Not three posts, but one whole entire blog I’ve been loving this week! :: ‘Unfancy‘, written by the beautiful Caroline. Unfancy is a style blog that centres around Caroline’s seasonal, 37-piece capsule wardrobe. Real outfits, items worn over and over in new ways- it’s amazing! I found it via lovely Nat (whose blog is always a killer read, for me) and have been reading it ‘cover to cover’ all this week. If you’re into soft (not super severe) minimalism and a clean aesthetics, you will LOVE it! I kind of want to redo my whole entire wardrobe after reading Caroline’s posts…

Now, what’s on your happy list for this week? :)

19 Comments
Posted in 10 THINGS, HAPPINESS

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16.10

Cappuccino+tartan

If there’s one thing that I’ve learnt about myself over the course of writing this blog for the past couple of years, it’s that I’m kind of obsessed with the seasons. I just can’t help myself from making mention of the seasons in the vast majority of posts. I guess it’s an occupational hazard of being British ;) The constant changes and relentlessly regular pattern of the year appeal both to my innate impatience, and the part of me that thrives on predictability.

As much as the winter months are probably my favourite (just don’t ask me to say that when it comes to spring and summer, okay?), I do find it’s harder to keep energised and positive during autumn and winter. The dark mornings, darker evenings, and the cold that gets right in to your bones make it tricky not to just camp out in bed, and allow the day to just slip away. I know *so* many people who struggle with keeping positive during the winter months, and I find my own outlook tends to be less uplifted from around this time of year right through until spring.

And so, on that note, here are five of my favourite ways for staying chipper and motivated during the autumn and winter months! ::

1 :: Set just one alarm. {and don’t even think about hitting snooze;) }
All through summer I found it easy as pie to get up in the morning. My 7am alarm would sound, I’d swipe to turn it off (iPhone, you see), then hop straight out of bed in a manner so chipper it was kind of sick-making. As the mornings have been getting darker and darker though, it’s been more challenging to rise quite so promptly. Best way to combat a serious case of the Just Five More Minutes, I’ve found, is to set just one single alarm right at the time you actually need to get up (not 15 minutes beforehand, it’ll only make it easier to drift back off to sleep) and then flip the covers off the very second it starts sounding. Setting several alarms means that when it goes off in the morning, there isn’t quite that same ‘ooh my alarm is going that means I have to wake up’ trigger, and so it’s waaaay too easy to ignore and go back to sleep. {Keeping a stash of cosy layers and your favourite slippers down by the side of the bed for putting on as soon as you get up helps a lot, too}

2 :: Get outside.
Even when it’s raining (okay, maybe not when it’s raining…). But I believe a dose of fresh air each day helps beat out the winter blues…even when that fresh air is kind of frosty.

3 :: Switch the lights on.
We’re sensible people. We try to stick to the whole ‘leave a room, switch off the light’ thing (if Jason were reading this write now, he’d be scoff-laughing because he is ALWAYS nagging me to remember that rule ;) but during the winter months, all bets are off. I just can’t deal with having a dark house during winter. The hall lamp and kitchen lights get left on pretty much constantly, and much to my fiancé’s dismay, I tend to leave a little trail of lights on wherever I go. Economical it’s not. But as a way of dealing with short, dingy winter days? It’s a good’un.

4 :: Make evening plans {even when you’d rather stay home}
This is my personal nemesis. The urge to curl up on the sofa and hide away is pretty strong in me anyway, but couple that with cold/wet weather and the dark? Goodbye world, hello hiding under the duvet on the sofa. Which is great and all, but come mid-January, I tend to go a bit stir crazy. So try making a few evening plans (dinner out, fun courses at a local adult education centre, cinema trips, date night at a local bar, Pilates/yoga classes) and make the most of it being dark enough that you don’t have to bother shaving your legs ;)

5 :: Embrace the cosy!
Just give in to the cliches of autumn and winter, and ham it right up. Pretend you live in your favourite Pinterest board. I’m talking candles everywhere. Blankets on the bed, sofas, chairs, + round your shoulders. Hot chocolate/tea/coffee several times a day. Wear as much tartan as you can get your hands on. Treat yourself to something made of cashmere, wear it until it’s full of holes, then sew them up and wear it some more. Bung up a few strings of fairy lights (and ignore your fiancé when he tuts about them all being blown by the time Christmas comes around).

Embrace and indulge in all the silly, beautiful parts of the winter months, let them fill your heart in the way that only beautiful, silly things can, and wear them like armour when it’s so cold your fingers feel like ice lollies, and it’s dark by 4pm.

I don’t know about you, but after all that I feel just about ready for the clocks to go back!

43 Comments
Posted in AUTUMN, HOW TO, WINTER

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15.10

CIDER-WITH-ROSIE-GIVEAWAY

I have a fun giveaway to share here on Cider with Rosie today!

Posterlounge is an online print company, that sells a huge range of really affordable photographs, artwork, and prints for hanging in your home. For those of you in the gallery wall way of thinking, it’s just the thing! I’m always on the hunt for beautiful prints to add to the walls of our house, and there are so many gorgeous and unique pieces on Posterlounge. I especially like how customisable the pieces are.  On many of the prints and photographs, you’re able to switch between black + white, sepia, and full colour options, and also to flip images and adjust sizing so that they fit perfectly wherever you’d like to hang them.

So today, I have 2x £25 vouchers for Posterlounge to give away! Most of the prints cost less than £10, so the vouchers will be the perfect amount to kick off a really lovely gallery wall! Not that I’ve got gallery walls on the brain, or anything of the sort…

If you’d like to win, just make sure you’re following Cider with Rosie on Bloglovin‘, Facebook and Twitter, and then leave a comment below! I’ll select the two winners at random a week from today, and share both on here and on Twitter! Good luck!

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42 Comments
Posted in GIVEAWAY

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